Carmen Rodriguez vs. Mad Max - Welcome Back, Max

A submission hold. Carmen was doing a submission hold.

The crowd gave some mild applause, the same level of excitement you'd expect anytime someone locked a successful move in. Carmen didn't care much for the titles, but she knew they'd call her a 'face' and would label Max as a 'heel' after all the nonsense with his hammer. But Carmen? She was proud. Her first successful submission hold. That was a benchmark, and even though she'd always stay a striker at heart, she couldn't ignore the usefulness. Definitely something she needed to incorporate into her growing style.

She leaned back and increased the pressure on him, grunting from the exertion. She could hear him groaning in pain below her, and she wasn't ashamed to say she liked the sound.

"Tap out!" Two words she never thought she'd say.

"AHHHHHHHHH!" Max shouted in agony as he felt Carmen crank up the pressure on the hold, stretching out his lower abdominal area and damaging his back. The silver-haired wrestler was hopelessly trapped in a simple submission with so far to go in order to reach the ropes. His entire body ached and this wasn't helping his case in the least bit. He knew that defeat was likely imminent, but Maxwell didn't want to admit it. That's what tapping would mean to him. Tapping meant admitting that he was going to lose.

"NO!" he managed to yell back at Carmen. The stubborn ass of a wrestler had never tapped before and surely wasn't about to now. He would much rather pass out from the pain and exhaustion than to give up. There had to be a way out, right? The beaten-down silver-lover planted his palms on either side and tried to push himself up. He got about 2 or 3 inches of his chest off of the mat before collapsing back down. His head lay on the mat with his mouth agape as his blue eyes looked glazed at the crowd. All he saw back were looks that told him that they would love to see him lose. Forget them. You don't need them. All you need is yourself... told the voice to the man. "I...won't....tap!" he grunted much less enthused than his previous shout. There was no fight in his voice. All there was was curiosity in how the Latina sought to wrap him up in a bow.

Carmen was a little torn. On one hand, she had to admire Max's tenacity and his steadfast resolve. She was bending him into a pretzel, but he refused to tap, fighting to the last breath. It was hard to tell if that was because he was too stubborn or too crazy to give up, but either way, she had to admire the toughness, especially considering how many times she'd tapped out already in her short career. If the positions were reversed...

On the other hand, this had been a weird, tiring match, and she was more than ready to just go home and sleep it off. So this defiance was impressing her and pissing her off. Rare combo. He wanted to do this the hard way? Okay. Done.

"Hijo de puta..." She muttered and tossed his legs down, then spun around on his back to face the back of his head. Reaching up, she wrapped her arm around his neck from and tried to get him in a classic rear naked choke, looking to put him to sleep. If he didn't want to give up, she'd just go for a move that didn't require him to. She'd been scoring knockouts for years, no problem with them.

Maxwell knew that the end was just around the corner, but his sheer stubbornness and unwillingness to give his opponent the satisfaction of him admitting defeat was what prevented him from admitting defeat. His back felt like if it was bent any further, his spine would snap. His hip was threatening to rip from his body. Still, he did not want to tap.

Then, he heard Carmen mutter something in Spanish, a language he never bothered to learn any further than asking for the bathroom or how to find the arena. All he knew is that it sounded angry. You're going to get it now unless you do something.... said the voice. The Mad One was in no position nor condition to do anything though as his legs were thrown the mat with a thud. His elbow propped him up to instinctively start to crawl, but that lasted all of one second as an forearm pressed against his throat and pressure was applied to it as the Latina squeezed. "AGH! UGGGGGH!" he choked out loud as his arms stretched and grasped as his throat for release. Through all of his grasping, Max couldn't have pried the peel off a banana at this point. His grasping was slowly dying as his hands fell to the mat. The silver-haired wrestler was holding on, but not by much as he gritted his teeth.

Frankly, Carmen preferred punching people in a match. Oh, she'd learned new moves and worked on all sorts of techniques, but her fists were still the main draw. Her natural inclination was to pound the shit out of her opponents, not gently rock them to sleep.

But for Max? She would make an exception. He was a special case. 'Special'.

"Just. Go. To. Sleep." She emphasized every word with a squeeze and then powered down, trying to drain the life straight out of him. "Tap out or knock out, it doesn't make much difference to me. Pick."

He was fighting it all the way...or trying to. But he didn't have the energy to even think about pulling her off. She had him, by the looks of it, and it was all over. His brain just needed time to realize it.

The silver-haired wrestler mashed his teeth as he breathed audibly through his nose. His arms had long since given up on prying the pythons from his neck and instead reached out fruitlessly for some ropes or some sort of hope. His vision was starting to fade a bit.

"I. Won't. Tap!" he managed to mumble from his half-unconscious state. This he was adamant about following through doing. His arms were more flopping now as his eyes lay nearly closed. Maxwell's legs twitched mostly lifeless as there was no fight left in his body.

Even the tension of his teeth had managed to be subdued as his mouth now was closed. There seemed to be no chance at him coming back from this one, and both he and the ref seemed to notice it.

The striped official quickly got down on the mat and reached for a motionless arm to lift up before turning to Carmen. "Do you want the knockout?" she asked the Latina as she dropped Maxwell's lifeless arm for the first time and watching it fall. Two more of those and the official call would be a knockout.

Carmen heard Max's cry of defiance loud and clear, and while it might have made for an insprining start to a comeback in some sports movie, in real life, it just was not happening. Period. "I. Don't. Care!"

She stayed on him like an obsessed limpit, riding down what little struggles he had left to give and ratcheting up the pressure with the occasional jolt, just to make sure the job was done. It took a while. Much longer than she thought it would. But, eventually, the lights started to fade. Even crazy people need to breathe.

She eased up as the ref started the count, not wanting to hurt Max too badly, even with all the guff that had went down between them. Brain damage was the last thing this guy needed. "'Want'? I don't know about 'want'." It was an anti-climatic way to close the match, but it was an end. Not every win makes for a good highlight reel. "But I'll take it, yeah." She nodded. "Keep counting."

The ref girl nodded in understanding. She had heard wrestlers yell at her to stop looking for the knockout because they had wanted to pin their opponent, and technically the knockout or submission had to be accepted by the aggressor. She knew that if she got on the wrong side of any wrestler, then she would likely end up knocked out faster than this silver haired nut job laying flat on the mat.

She reached for Maxwell's wrist a second time, picking it up high and dropping it. The arm fell limp to the mat. One more and she could ring the bell.

Maxwell was all but unconscious. He felt his airway eased up upon, which brought some much needed oxygen to his lungs. He knew that he was beat. As the ref girl raised up his wrist for the second time, the only movement he could make was an involuntary cough. His arm fell limp and smacked the mat for a second time.

Then the ref girl grabbed his wrist for the final time. She raised it high in the air and let it go. Maxwell partly wanted to stop his arm from falling, but even if he tried, it wouldn't have worked. Besides, Carmen was in enough control that she would probably be pissed enough to knock his lights out until he was bleeding from all orifices.

The arm fell to the mat obeying and the ref girl quickly sprang to her feet. She pointed to the timekeeper to ring the bell as the match was now over. Her next move was to tap Carmen's shoulder in order to get her to let go of Maxwell. All that would be left after that was to signal the paramedics for the nutjob and possibly the victor's brother.

The moment Carmen heard the bell, she let out the longest, most exasperated, most relieved sigh of her entire life. It was over. Thank. God.

Calling Max 'stubborn' felt like an inadequate term. Oxen were stubborn. A brick wall was stubborn. A mountain was stubborn. Max was in a whole differnet category. If he was conscious - and not crazy - she would have suggested he look into boxing. Not because she thought he had the natural talent for it, but because she had a hard time imagining any guy able to go the full ten with him. They'd go nuts about halfway through and throw in the towel.

She let Max go and stood up, letting the ref raise her arm in triumph. The crowd cheered, but all she could manage for them was a weak wave. As much as she apprecaited the adulation, Carmen wanted to be out of this ring as soon as possible.

She looked to the side and saw Army rubbing his head, grumbling as he finally managed to get all of his shit back together. Frankly, it looked like he could use a breather, too. Tonight, they would dine on fine Japanese take-out and sake.

"Are we done, here?" He ran his hands over the ever-growing lump on his head, which almost seemed to be screaming for some ointment.

Carmen spared Max one last look, growing silent for a moment as she thought it over. She hoped that this was the last she'd see of him...which, knowing her luck, meant they would definitely cross paths again. Joy. "Yeah." She made her way to the ropes. "We're done."

With that finished, Carmen slipped through the ropes and joined Army, and the two siblings made their way to the back, side by side.

Winner By Knockout: Carmen Rodriguez